Exterior deck structures, such as decks, gratings and walkways, are typically designed to allow water to fall through the spacing between adjacent decking boards or other apertures. It may be desirable to otherwise collect this water to thereby make the space under such surface dry.
A deck water collection assembly is disclosed in a pending application titled "Rain Water Diverter System for Deck Structures", Ser. No. 09/365,794, filed Aug. 3, 1999, by Richard A. Davis and LeRoy A. Prohofsky. A commercial embodiment of this pending application is marketed by the Underdeck Company of Minneapolis, Minn. The pending application discloses a system of convex collectors sheets alternating with concave gutters in an overlapping arrangement such that water dripping from the side edges of the collector drains into the gutters. This combination provides substantial advantages over other prior art in economy, attractiveness and ease of assembly/disassembly. These advantages are derived from a concept where the individual elements snap together to form an impermeable array. However, the coupling of collectors to gutters has inherent disadvantages. Particularly, the coupling of the pending application must be free to slip for easy disassembly and it must be discontinuous to allow water to drain from the collector to the gutter. If the gaps in the coupling are small, the system is susceptible to clogging at these gaps. If the gaps are large, the system is additionally susceptible to buckling. However it is configured, the coupling between collector and gutter is weak and contributes little to the rigidity of the system. This weakness must be overcome by measures which increase the cost of the system, e.g., thickening the collector to make it more rigid.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an impermeable assembly which may be easily mounted to the underside of existing decks, gratings or walkways, which collects and routes rain water to a discharge point while maintaining the area under the deck free of dripping water.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a rain water diverter system for deck structures using water collectors that do not require connection to gutters.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a rain water diverter system for deck structures that is easy to assemble.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a rain water diverter system for deck structures that is relatively simple to manufacture and efficient in operation.
Other objects of the present invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.